Professor
English
Jodi Melamed is associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Marquette University. She is the author of Represent and Destroy: Rationalizing Violence in the New Racial Capitalism (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and has published many articles and chapters in a wide array of journals and editions. She is a co-editor of a recent volume of Social Text focused on “Economies of Dispossession.” Her current book project, Dispossession by Administration, investigates the diffuse and deadly capacities of administrative power to give impunity to racial capitalist violence through seemingly neutral repertoires of ‘democratic’, ‘procedural’, and ‘technical’ governance. Jodi Melamed is the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and grants, including a Fulbright, a Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellowship, and grants from the American Studies Association, the Social Science Research Council, the Mellon Foundation and the Wisconsin Humanities Council.
Courses Taught
- U.S. Literature and Culture after World War I
- Africana Studies/Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
- Cultural Studies/Gender and Sexuality Studies
Research Interests
- Race and Capitalism
- Literature and Social Movements
- Value and Materialism
Publications
- " ‘Don’t Arrest Me, Arrest the Police’: Uprisings against Policing as the Street Administration of Colonial Racial Capitalist Orders.” Lisa Cacho, co-author. Colonial Racial Capitalisms. Jodi Byrd, Lisa Cacho, Bryan Jordan Jefferson, and Susan Koshy, editors. September 2022
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“How Police Abuse the Charge of Resisting Arrest.” Lisa Cacho, co-author. Boston Review. June 2020. Web publication. [Editor reviewed.] https://bostonreview.net/articles/lisa-cacho-jodi-melamed-resisting-arrest/
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“Using Liberal Rights to Enforce Racial Capitalism.” Chandan Reddy, co-author. Items: Journal of the Social Science Research Council. (Race and Capitalism Forum, Michael Dawson and Megan Ming Francis, Editors). Web publication. July 30, 2019. https://items.ssrc.org/race-capitalism/using-liberal-rights-to-enforce-racial-capitalism/
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Economies of Disposession: Indigeneity, Race, and Capitalism. Jodi Byrd, Alyosha Goldstein, and Chandan Reddy, co-editors. A special issue of Social Text, no. 135 (June 2018). 168 pages.
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"Predatory Value: Economies of Dispossession and Disturbed Relationalities." Co-authored with Jodi Byrd, Alyosha Goldstein, and Chandan Reddy. Social Text No. 135 (May 2018): 1-18.
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"The Proliferation of Rights-Based Capitalist Violence and Pedagogies of CollectiveAction." American Quarterly Vol. 70, Issue 2 (June 2018): 179-189.
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"Being Together Subversively, Outside in the University of Hegemonic Affirmation and Repressive Violence, As Things Heat Up (Again).” American Quarterly. 68.4 (Spring 2016). 980-991.
- "Proceduralism, Predisposing, Poesis: Institutionality, In the Making.” Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association. Issue 5.1 (Spring 2016): Web. 7000 words. http://csalateral.org/wp/issue/5-1/forum-alt-humanities-institutionality-making-melamed/
- "Post-marxism, American studies, and post-capitalist futures.” Approaches to American Cultural Studies. Eds. Antje Dallmann, Eva Boesenberg. New York: Routledge, 2016. 133-145.
- “Racial Capitalism.” Journal of Critical Ethnic Studies 1.1. Spring 2015: 76-86.
- "Diversity." Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Second Edition. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler, New York, NY: New York University Press, 2014.
- "Dangerous Associations." American Quarterly 66.2 (Summer 2014).
- "Academic Freedom with Violence," co-authored with Roderick A. Ferguson, AAUG Journal of Academic Freedom, volume 4 (2013).
- Represent and Destroy: Rationalizing Violence in the New Racial Capitalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
- "Reading Tehran in Lolita: Seizing Literary Value for Neoliberal Multiculturalsim." Strange Affinities: The Gender and Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization. Eds. Grace Kyungwon Hong and Roderick Ferguson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011
- "The Killing Joke of Sympathy: Chester Himes's End of a Primitive Sounds the Limits of Mid-Century Racial Liberalism." American Literature 81 (Dec. 2008).
- “The Ruptures of American Capital,” American Literature 79,4 (Winter 2007): 843-845.
- “The Spirit of Neoliberalism: From Racial Liberalism to Neoliberal Multiculturalism,” Social Text 89 (Winter 2006): 1-25.
- “W.E.B. Du Bois’s UnAmerican End,” African American Review 40 (Fall 2006): 533-550.
Honors and Awards
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Way Klingler Humanities Fellowship (2022-2024)
- Portal Project Fellow, University of Illinois Chicago, Social Justice Initiative (2021-2023)
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Robert and Mary Gettel Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence (2020)
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University Sabbatical Fellowship Award (2019-2020)
- Fulbright Award (2012-2013)
- Wisconsin Humanities Council Grants (2012. 2010, 2006)
- James R. Grahl Research Fellow, University of Nebraska, Kearney and the Crane Trust (2012)
- American Studies Association, Community Partnership Grant (2007)
- Mellon Research Grant (2007)
- Faculty Development Award, Marquette (2005)
- Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities (2002-2004)
- Social Science Research Council Fellowship (2000-2003)
- Columbia University Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy Fellowship (2001-2003)
Additional Information
Office Hours
Fall 2023
- TuTh 2:00-3:30 (in person or virtual)
Teaching Schedule
Fall 2023
- 4820/101 TuTh 12:30-1:45 Marquette Hall 105
- Studies in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies: Race and Racism in Milwaukee: Cultural Critique